


That Which You Seek (Finds You)

by simplesetgo



Category: Legend of the Seeker
Genre: Alternate Universe - Western, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-07
Updated: 2012-02-07
Packaged: 2017-10-30 18:19:10
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,563
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/334691
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/simplesetgo/pseuds/simplesetgo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A belated present for <a href="http://tornainbow.livejournal.com/"><b>tornainbow</b></a>, who requested a Western AU!</p>
            </blockquote>





	That Which You Seek (Finds You)

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to [**thedawn**](http://thedawn.livejournal.com/) for fixing my words!

It was high noon at Aydindril Gulch. Normally the outpost would be abuzz with activity: teams of oxen hauling wagons, sellers hawking their wares outside their establishments. Normally the doors of the Brothers Rahl Saloon were swinging open and closed with nary a pause as patrons entered sober and departed less so. Normally Denna’s girls were teasing and calling at passersby from the balcony of her brothel.  
  
But none of that was happening now. The town was dead silent, and its streets deserted—save two lone figures, locked in a distanced battle of wills on the main thoroughfare. Wind whistled eerily through buildings, kicking up dust and sending tumbleweed rolling across the road. Kahlan didn’t dare glance to the distraction. She knew that if she looked to her sides, she’d see many windows with shutters closed, and those that weren’t filled with row upon row of curious faces. But if she looked, if she lost focus for an instant, she’d receive a bullet in her chest courtesy of the outlaw Cara Mason.  
  
“This town ain’t big enough for the two of us, Sheriff Amnell,” the blonde woman drawled, fingers poised over the holster at her hip. Her eyes gleamed under the wide brim of her hat.  
  
“Then you’d best get to saying your farewells,” Kahlan said, voice loud to carry over the charged air between them. “This here is _my_ town.”  
  
“It is ‘til I take it from you.”  
  
Kahlan’s fingers flexed a hairsbreadth from her own holster. “Over my dead body.”  
  
“Now that…would be a right pity.” After a moment’s pause, Cara Mason lifted her right hand to tip her hat, as if she’d been convinced to withdraw just from those words. But from what little Kahlan knew of Cara, the blonde never gave up, and she never played fair.  
  
The crack of a pistol shot echoed off the buildings just as Kahlan hit the dirt on her side—unharmed. Her reflexes and instincts had done their job. Cara’d drawn with her left while reaching for her hat—the outlaw had a second pistol under her left vest, Keeper take her, and she was every bit as quick of a draw as the stories claimed.  
  
Time always slowed for Kahlan in moments like this—almost like the world was waiting for her—but it hardly stopped. If Cara had a second gun then she had a second shot ready. Adrenaline rushed through her veins as she rolled, got to her feet with pistol in hand, and ran, firing a shot sideways as she found cover behind a wide flour barrel outside Zedd’s General Store. Sure enough, Cara’s second shot rang out a heartbeat too late, ripping splinters from the side of the barrel inches from Kahlan’s face. She caught the blonde in a reflection of dusty glass across the street, and frowned. Cara hadn’t moved; she stood relaxed in the middle of the street, still, both pistols in hand. “Cocky, overconfident, little…” she murmured, and sighed. Saloon talk had never fit her tongue. But this was a clear insult to Kahlan, and she didn’t take kindly to those.  
  
“Come on, now, Sheriff,” Cara called out. “Don’t go to hiding on me, now. It’s nothing personal. Let’s go discuss your surrender at Rahl’s; I’ll even let you buy me a drink and a whore.”  
  
Well, she couldn’t let that quite stand. She fired near-blind around the barrel, two shots. Another bullet zipped into the barrel in reply. Kahlan gritted her teeth. Cara wanted her to charge out recklessly. So she wouldn’t. Her pistol was steady in her hand, cool steel against her palm, and her thoughts clear. Two could play at this distraction game, she thought. “Sorry, Zedd,” Kahlan muttered, then twisted and struck the window at her side with the butt of her pistol. It shattered loudly, and she winced as falling glass broke over the sill; she was barely far enough away to avoid death by its shards. But the louder sound of two pistol shots made it quite worth it—Cara was apparently far jumpier than she was letting on. Triumphant, Kahlan leaned out, sighted, and fired as the woman was re-cocking. Cara’s left shoulder jerked back. She fell heavily to her knees. Both pistols hit the dirt as she reached her right hand to clamp down on the wound in her shoulder, head bowed.  
  
Kahlan approached slowly. It appeared to be over, but something wasn’t quite right. The air hadn’t settled yet, and Cara was too still. Then it happened again, that fine-tuned sense of things yet to come. Cara’s hand began to drop. A knife glinted brightly in her boot. Kahlan’s finger pulled the trigger.  
  
It was a warning shot: a small cloud of dust erupted inches from Cara’s hand. She had the pistol cocked again before Cara even looked up. The blonde regarded her sullenly from under the brim of her hat. “I’d put my hands up, but you shot my shoulder.”  
  
“One will do just fine,” Kahlan said smoothly. She hesitated. “Are you crazy? What made you think you could throw a knife before I shot you in the head?”  
  
Cara squinted at her. “Why didn’t you?”  
  
“I’m here to enforce justice in this town. If you’re found guilty, you’ll hang in public.”  
  
The outlaw sighed. “Well, I’d take the bullet.”  
  
“That’s too bad,” Kahlan said. “Hand up, now.”  
  
Cara frowned. “Really?”  
  
“Really. Richard!” she yelled. “Come out here!”  
  
He busted from the doors of the saloon and trotted over, eyes wide. “You alright, Sheriff? If you’d let me have a gun I could’a—”  
  
“You’re not gettin’ a gun ever again,” Kahlan interrupted. “Ever. I told you that.” She nodded at Cara, weapon still aimed. “Arrest her, Deputy.”  
  
Richard gulped, and looked behind him. “I, uh, forgot my cuffs…at the…”  
  
Cara smirked. Liberal amounts of blood were staining her shirt under her hand, but she didn’t even look bothered. “That’s some right nice help you have there, Sheriff.”  
  
“He’s part-time.” Kahlan pulled her own handcuffs from her belt, and tossed them to Richard. “See if you can make it to the jail without forgetting the prisoner.”  
  
****  
  
It was decided that Cara should get the chance to heal before her trial. Old Zedd made daily visits to the jailhouse and tended to her wound (once Kahlan apologized profusely for smashing his window). With her left arm in a sling, there was much Cara couldn’t do. That list of things was already short, though, considering her current place of habitation (a jail cell) and only task (waiting for trial). In the end this amounted to changing clothes. So she simply settled on wearing breeches and her open leather vest—nothing else—in between baths.  
  
It wouldn’t have been a problem, but Aydindril was a small town, sprung up during the gold rush, and Kahlan’s office and desk shared a room with the cells. Thus she was treated daily to a view of the outlaw’s hardened, sun-tanned body, half dressed, through the bars of her cell.  
  
And none of that would’ve been a problem if Kahlan didn’t enjoy the view so damn much.  
  
****  
  
“So who’s the best lay you ever had, Sheriff?”  
  
Looking up from her sizable desk, Kahlan peered at Cara over her reading glasses. “None of your business, Mason.”  
  
“Man or a woman,” Cara mused. “I wonder, with the looks you’ve been slippin’ me.” She paused, but Kahlan didn’t dignify the ridiculous accusation with a response. “Was it Sherry?” Cara raised her good arm to lean against a bar. Shadows hid the swell of her breast, not that Kahlan was looking. “Or maybe Lacey,” Cara continued. “Or no—that blonde girl, birthmark under her breast. What’s her name?”  
  
“Annabelle,” Kahlan answered absently. Too late, she realized Cara was referencing three of Denna’s prettiest working girls. Her cheeks flushed.  
  
Cara grinned. “So it is. You like blondes, Sheriff?”  
  
“I like peace and quiet while I do paperwork,” Kahlan said. She tossed her hair over her shoulder and began firmly scribbling gibberish on a blank sheet of paper. She would have to have a word with Denna about her definition of the word _discreet_.  
  
****  
  
One morning, Kahlan found Cara sitting up on her cot with her back to the door. She was topless. She had _beautiful_ skin. Kahlan’s steps faltered as she took in the sight. Cara twisted around, arm over her chest in a sudden show of modesty. “Vest came off in my sleep,” she said innocently. “Could use some help gettin’ it back on.”  
  
Kahlan shook her head. “Nope. Not falling for that. Zedd can help you when he comes by in a couple hours.”  
  
Cara grimaced, and thought for a moment before gingerly removing her sling and slowly slipping that cursed vest back on. Kahlan barely hid her disappointment.  
  
She had beautiful skin, after all.  
  
****  
  
Richard came by, once. Cara nearly had the Deputy’s pants seduced off of him, and his keys with them, when Kahlan came back from lunch at his brother’s place. He at least had the decency to look guilty. Cara did not.  
  
****  
  
“You hear what the old man said?”  
  
“Yep,” Kahlan replied. “You’re almost healed. Which means it’s almost time for that trial.”  
  
“Fancy indulging a condemned outlaw’s last request?”  
  
Kahlan narrowed her eyes, leaning against the wall near the cell. “What?”  
  
“Send Lacey my way tonight.” Cara tapped a quick rhythm on the bars with her fingertips. “I have a hell of a thing for dark hair and blue eyes, see.”  
  
“I wouldn’t endanger the poor girl by lettin’ her in that cell with you,” Kahlan said smoothly.  
  
“Then find one that can handle me,” Cara said with a reckless smirk. “But really now, I won’t hurt her. You can ask around Denna’s place. I always give better than I get.”  
  
“Don’t think so.”  
  
“C’mon now, Sheriff. I’d do the same for you.”  
  
Kahlan raised an eyebrow. “How could you know my last request would be a pretty girl in my bed?”  
  
Cara’s green eyes drilled into her and Kahlan almost felt naked. “Cause we’re not so different, you and me.”  
  
****  
  
Late one night, Kahlan stumbled into the jail after breaking up a nasty bar fight. Sometimes it seemed Darken encouraged them at his place just to get a chance to make passes at her, the scoundrel. When things got bad enough to warrant her presence, all she usually had to do was show up and flash her badge—this time, she’d had to shoot a hole in his ceiling before everyone settled down.  
  
“You alright, Sheriff?” came a voice from the dark corner cell. “Lookin’ a little frayed around the edges, there.”  
  
“Yeah, fine,” Kahlan said. “Had to deck a guy twice my size.” She shook her hand at her side, and winced. “Still hurts.”  
  
The cot creaked as Cara stood to lean against the bars, hips canted. “Well, this here’s the injury cell. It’s a bit cozy but I think we could manage another occupant. You don’t mind cozy, do you?”  
  
Kahlan smiled at her, laughed a bit. “Not in your dreams, Mason.”  
  
****  
  
A thunderstorm broke late in the day, and it was still pouring down torrents of rain when Kahlan jogged across the street to get to her building after sundown. Well, it was less of a street, now, than a river of mud sucking at her boots with every step. She slammed the door shut once inside, and wasted no time taking off her boots and lighting the lamps.  
  
Cara’s trial was tomorrow. They both knew the ordeal, for all of Kahlan’s insistence on it, was pointless. She was infamous for robbing stagecoaches and banks all over the region; her picture adorned many saloons with a five-digit reward over her head. She would be found guilty, and she would hang.  
  
With a crack of rolling thunder, Kahlan approached Cara’s cell. The outlaw was seated on the edge of her cot, leaned forward with her head down. Kahlan had seen this before, the realization of mortality that comes with the promise of imminent justice. She wasn’t sure why it suddenly seemed…sad, to her, the way Cara’s face was hidden by the fringe of her hair. “There you are,” Cara drawled, looking up at her. Her expression was anything but sad. If possible, she was the cockiest Kahlan had seen her. The outlaw made a show of looking behind Kahlan. “Where’s my whore?” she complained, her tone miffed.  
  
Kahlan sighed, a smile tugging at her lips. She should’ve known better.  
  
****  
  
“And that’s why I took away Richard’s gun,” she finished, swirling the whiskey in her glass.  
  
“I’d have taken his badge,” Cara remarked, then took a lengthy swallow from her own. “Maybe his balls, too.”  
  
Kahlan chuckled, shaking her head. The liquor was settling comfortably, warm in her belly. She’d dragged a chair right beside Cara’s cell, and with Cara sprawled out on her cot not two feet away it could’ve been two friends passing time together—but for the bars between them. Cara’s sling lay abandoned by her feet.  
  
The building’s doors were locked, deadbolts secure, and Kahlan had hidden their key in the closet; the windows were high, narrow, and barred. The key to Cara’s cell, on the other hand, was in her pocket. She met Cara’s glance, and there was a flutter in her chest as she realized she was going to use it. It was just a matter of when.  
  
At a lull in the conversation, Kahlan lifted her brow at Cara. “So,” she began, drawing out the word.  
  
“So,” said Cara, shifting a bit closer.  
  
Kahlan giggled into her glass, then took a warm swallow. “Who’s the best lay you’ve ever had, in all your…travels, and adventures?”  
  
Cara tilted her head, eyes never leaving Kahlan’s. “Can’t really say. Think my best lay hasn’t happened yet.”  
  
“You’re gettin’ hanged tomorrow,” Kahlan pointed out.  
  
Cara grinned. “Then it’d better happen fast.”  
  
It was unnerving just how fast it did happen. Kahlan had the cell unlocked, door swung open, and Cara’s arms around her before she could even stop to think. There was hot and heavy breathing, a moment passing with the two of them doing nothing but finding their bearings, ensuring this was real. Then Kahlan shoved Cara’s back to the bars, and tore her leather vest from her body.  
  
She was laid bare, all pretense gone—finally!—but Kahlan was too hungry, had waited too long, to drink in the sight with eyes alone. Cara’s hand cupped the back of her neck as she leaned down, taking a heaving breast into her mouth. She suckled the warm flesh, tonguing the hardening nipple between her lips; she didn’t even notice Cara tugging at her own clothing as she switched to the other, palming the wet skin she’d left with her hand.  
  
She raised her arms, panting as Cara pulled her shirt over her head. Her badge clattered onto the floor and she huffed back laughter. Cara smirked, and kissed her. Kahlan pushed back hard with her mouth, seizing bars at Cara’s shoulders, pinning the blonde with her body even as Cara’s lips urged her own apart. A moan left Kahlan’s throat, her arms tightening as Cara’s thigh shifted between her legs. She let herself press down against Cara, her sex growing warm, the tendrils of pleasure curling in her belly.  
  
But there were other things Kahlan wanted to taste on Cara’s body. Her hands dropped to fumble with Cara’s breeches as she sucked kisses from Cara’s neck. Cara knew what was happening next: when Kahlan sank to her knees she groaned, lifting her hands high to grip the bars above her head. Kahlan yanked her pants down her legs, underthings with them. Cara’s wetness glistened at her from the apex of her thighs. Kahlan urged her legs apart and Cara shifted, widening her stance. Kahlan glanced up to see Cara staring at her wide-eyed, holding her breath. She smiled to herself, slipped hands around the smooth skin of Cara’s thighs to hold her how she wanted, and closed her eyes as she tasted her sex.  
  
It was all worth it for this reaction, Kahlan told herself, to feel Cara buck her hips into her mouth as she groaned wantonly. Nose buried in coarse, blonde hair, Kahlan’s tongue licked and explored Cara’s sensitive flesh. She was dripping, her taste heavy. Kahlan thrust her tongue hard. It wasn’t meant to last, though; Cara’s moans turned to urgent grunts, her hips rolling as she tried to ride Kahlan’s tongue to release. Kahlan supplied what Cara needed, and the blonde broke against her mouth, and came, and came, and came. Kahlan’s lips were slick with her ample release as she placed a final kiss on Cara’s flushed sex.  
  
****  
  
Cara always gave better than she got. Kahlan had even been warned, but it was still an unexpected experience to be so dominated by pleasure. Somehow they’d wandered out of the cell, kissed their way across the room, and then Cara had seen fit to lay Kahlan out on her sheriff’s desk and fuck her. The woman was _good_ at this, and she came twice, clenching around Cara’s fingers and gasping into her mouth, her head using a stack of papers for a pillow. Cara kneaded her breasts, sucked them and pinched her nipples, using her teeth in _just_ the right way, and then Kahlan was ready for another round.  
  
She laughed as Cara climbed up on the desk to mount her, but there was no room for amusement in what followed. The desk was barely big enough for it—Cara lifted one of Kahlan’s legs and shifted to set her hips at their apex, interlocking their thighs. From the first touch of Cara’s hot, slick sex to her own, she knew everything before was just a preface. Her brow furrowed, lips parting at the sensation. Cara smirked at her reaction, and set her body in smooth thrusting motions, grinding their centers together. Kahlan clutched at Cara’s hips, urging her on, and all she had to do was hold tight.  
  
****  
  
It took a solid second for Kahlan to realize exactly what had just happened. The clang of the cell door, the echo of it in the room, the sudden shock: she was still on the wrong side of the bars. She whirled from picking up her shirt, expecting to see Cara on the outside, but the outlaw was in the cell with her, hand still on the bars she’d pulled. Her brow furrowed. “What did you just do?” she demanded.  
  
Cara shrugged. “Oh, is it against the law to imprison the sheriff?”  
  
“Cara, the key is in my pants!” she shouted. “And my pants…are…”  
  
Her voice trailed off, dread rising in her chest. She was naked as the day she was born, and her pants were laying in a heap by her desk, on the other side of the room. They were stuck in the cell together until morning, until someone came to see what was keeping Kahlan from delivering Cara to trial. They would see. They would know.  
  
“Why?” groaned Kahlan. “Why’d you do this to me?”  
  
Cara smirked. “You fucked an outlaw, Sheriff, not an upstanding citizen.”  
  
“Don’t remind me.” She pulled on her shirt, and sat down on Cara’s cot with a huff. “Give me your pants.”  
  
“Nope.”  
  
Kahlan looked down between her legs, past her dark pubic hair, to where her thighs were still a bit slick with evidence of her release—and Cara’s. “Cara,” she said sharply. “Pants. Now. Or something,” she added.  
  
Cara shook her head, a rakish smile on her lips. “I kinda like you like that,” she said, eyes drifting down Kahlan’s body.  
  
Kahlan gritted her teeth. She had no real authority here. She could fight Cara hand to hand, wrestle the outlaw out of her pants, but if she lost she’d feel even more disgraced. So she huffed, and rested her back to the wall, crossing her legs.  
  
“Come on now, Sheriff,” said Cara. “Don’t go to sulking on me, now.”  
  
“I’m not sulking.”  
  
“Well, we’ve got time to kill. Could always fuck some more.”  
  
“Cara, it’s past midnight. I’m sleepy.” She closed her eyes.  
  
Minutes later, Cara rose from the cot beside her and knelt before her. She looked almost apologetic as she raised her brow and touched Kahlan’s knee. Kahlan glared at her, tight-lipped.  
  
She wasn’t glaring anymore once Cara had her legs parted, mouth on Kahlan’s sex, tongue pushing inside. With a sigh of surrender, Kahlan threaded fingers in Cara’s hair, letting herself moan a bit, letting herself widen her legs that much more. But soon such control was wrenched away, and she wasn’t _letting_ herself do anything; Cara had her right where she wanted her, and Kahlan realized she’d forgotten what it meant to truly lose herself in another.  
  
Later, when Kahlan actually was close to falling asleep, she asked Cara, “What were you before you were this?”  
  
They’d squeezed onto the cot together; a tight of a fit as it was, Kahlan was forced to more or less hold Cara in her arms. To her surprise, the blonde hadn’t protested. “I was nothin’, really,” came the eventual answer.  
  
“I don’t believe that,” Kahlan said. Cara just hummed drowsily. Apparently outlaws needed sleep like everyone else. “What would it take for you to go back to what you were?”  
  
“Can’t go back,” Cara murmured. “I did what I did.”  
  
“But if you had a choice,” Kahlan pressed, squeezing Cara’s arm for emphasis. “If you could start over, be something different, would you?”  
  
In the dead silence, she heard Cara swallow, felt her shift in her arms. Either she wasn’t going to answer, or she was giving this a lot of thought. Finally, she said, “Who wouldn’t?”  
  
Her voice carried forced flippancy, belying the truth underneath, and Kahlan had her answer.  
  
****  
  
“Sheriff?”  
  
The voice broke her dreamless sleep. She jolted awake, remembering with familiar dread that the woman slumbering peacefully in her arms was her prisoner, that she was buck naked from the waist down, that _none_ of that was a dream, unfortunately.  
  
“Richard,” she worked out gruffly. She cleared her throat as she sat up, grateful that Cara’s legs kept her nethers out of her deputy’s view. “Thank the Creator you’re here. I got tricked.”  
  
He tilted his head. “Tricked?”  
  
“Yeah, she…tricked me.”  
  
Cara stirred, and yawned. She sat up in turn, and Kahlan scrambled to hide herself—not quick enough. Richard’s eyes shot wide. “Sheriff, you’re not wearin’ pants,” he informed her.  
  
“They’re by the desk,” offered Cara, voice rough from sleep. “With the key in ‘em, I reckon.”  
  
“Oh.” He walked over and picked them up. Kahlan buried her head in her hands, feeling her cheeks burn. “How’d you trick her?” he asked Cara.  
  
Cara glanced to Kahlan, who was staring intently at the floor. “Well, I’m a very bad girl,” she drawled. “But instead of lettin’ me escape, she locked herself up with me.” She nudged Kahlan’s side and whispered, “You’re welcome.”  
  
“Shut up,” muttered Kahlan.  
  
****  
  
Aydindril Gulch was a ghost town once more. Everyone was at the courthouse. Wasn’t every day an infamous outlaw was tried and hanged, after all. It was a spectacle for all ages!  
  
Fully clothed once more, badge in place and hat on her head, Kahlan dragged a cuffed Cara Mason down the deserted street (not being overly gentle in her handling). She’d sent Richard ahead to apologize to Judge Egremont for their late arrival. But Cara hadn’t evaded capture thus far for being clueless. “Where are you taking me?” she hissed. “Cause it’s not the courthouse.”  
  
“Quiet,” Kahlan commanded.  
  
They reached Dane’s Stables & Tack a minute later. Cara was wary, possibly more so than Kahlan, once she was uncuffed. “What are you doing?”  
  
“I can’t let you hang,” said Kahlan as she quickly saddled a horse. “I don’t know why, ‘cause Creator knows you deserve it, but I can’t.”  
  
Cara was silent, but her eyes were intense, focused, as she kept watch for any passersby while Kahlan finished. “Okay, go,” said Kahlan, tossing the reins over the horse’s neck and stepping back. She swallowed. “Before I change my mind. Hurry.”  
  
Cara turned to her, brow furrowed. “Not until you tell me why. You’ll look like a fool.”  
  
“I don’t know!” Kahlan repeated through clenched teeth. “It’s just…a feeling, I have. I can’t watch you hang.”  
  
“You wouldn’t have to _watch_ ,” Cara argued. “There’s something else.”  
  
“Why are you fighting me on this?” she said in disbelief. “You want to die?”  
  
“I haven’t cared about my own life for a hell of a long time. It’s why I’m still alive.” Cara took a step closer to Kahlan. “Tell me why you’re lettin’ me go.”  
  
Kahlan wasn’t fooling anyone. Not herself, not Cara. Cara just wanted to hear her say it. But she wasn’t ready for that. “I’m a Sheriff, and you’re an outlaw,” she said calmly. “But you’re an outlaw that deserves a chance. I’m giving you a head start. Half a day. Then I’m comin’ after you.” She turned to leave. “Good luck, Mason.”  
  
Cara grabbed her arm, stopping her in her tracks. Confusion was clear in her green eyes, but that didn’t stop her from pulling Kahlan into an urgent kiss. Creator help her—Kahlan kissed her back, good and long and hard. Breathless, arms crossed, she lingered to watch Cara lift herself into the saddle, then she left out the stable’s back door.  
  
****  
  
It’d been a whirlwind of a day. She took full responsibility for her prisoner’s escape in front of the entire town, then stepped down as Aydindril’s sheriff. Everyone had questions for her, but there was no risk of her lying—even she wasn’t sure of everything that happened, or why. All she knew was that she was going after Cara, and that was what she told everyone. That she’d right her mistake.  
  
She’d pulled aside old Zedd and made sure that he’d watch after his grandson. Richard wasn’t ready to be sheriff, but there was no one else. With Zedd’s support and wisdom and Richard’s straightforward idealism, the law had more of a chance in Aydindril than it would’ve under her continued watch.  
  
Sundown found her at the outskirts of Aydindril Gulch, saddlebags packed. Her mount was eager to get going; he’d been cooped up in the stable for days. He whinnied, stamping his feet on the hard-packed earth when Kahlan pulled him to a stop. She turned around for one last look at her town. The streets were their busy selves once more, and buildings threw sharp shadows in the strong light of the setting sun. They would get along just fine without her.  
  
She turned back to face the road ahead. Cara had likely headed for Kelton—it was the nearest town, and she hadn’t had food or supplies when she left. Kahlan had no idea what she was going to do when she caught up to Cara, but it didn’t involve arresting her as she’d led the outlaw to believe. Hell, she’d left her cuffs behind. She’d left everything behind.  
  
Kahlan lowered the brim of her hat against the sun and dug her heels into the animal’s flank. There was only one direction to go: forward, into the sunset, toward Cara, toward whatever came next.


End file.
